Many granular comestible products, such as instant beverage mixes, are sold in jars which are closed by threaded caps. The quality of the granular comestible product deteriorates rapidly upon exposure to air, due in part to the large surface area of the granular composition. Thus, many instant beverage products are packed using an inner seal to exclude any contact with ambient air during shipping and marketing. However, the inner seal must be removed to make use of the product; thereafter, the jar cap must be relied upon to preserve the freshness and flavor of the product. Ironically, the cap must be removed from the jar each time it is desired to use the product. Removing and resecuring the jar cap is a minor inconvenience to the user of the product, but repeated opening of the jar exposes the contents thereof to large amounts of moisture, and oxygen-laden ambient air. For example, a large jar of instant coffee may be opened and resealed as many as two hundred times before the contents of the jar are completely used. Renewing the oxygen and humidity of the air within the jar two hundred times causes a serious deterioration in the flavor, aroma, and freshness of the product.
There are known in the prior art various devices for dispensing granular materials from a jar or other container. The following U.S. Patents comprise the closest known prior art:
______________________________________ 2,530,730 3,308,995 3,258,174 3,866,805 3,414,172 2,535,845 3,836,055 4,159,791 2,515,735 2,507,557 3,211,334 3,716,173 ______________________________________
Generally speaking, dispensing granular material with these devices involves inverting the jar to fill by gravital flow a chamber therein of known volume. In some of the devices, a lever or similar rotating member is then actuated to cause discharge of the granular material from the chamber. In other devices, the jar must be restored to its upright disposition; thereafter inversion of the jar will cause discharge of the granular material in the chamber.
A major drawback in some of the prior art devices is that the volume of granular material discharged in each dispensing operation is invariable. For example, if the chamber in the device has a volume of 1 teaspoon, the amount of material which may be dispensed from the device must be 1 teaspoon or a multiple thereof. For a reconstituted beverage product such as instant coffee, subtle variations in strength of the beverage to suit the particular tastes of a consumer thereof are not possible with many of the prior art dispensing devices.
To overcome this deficiency, some of the prior art devices have been designed to include a plurality of individual chambers which may be selectively filled and emptied during the dispensing process. As a result, some variation is obtainable in the amount of granular material which is dispensed by the device. However, these devices suffer from the same drawback as the non-variable dispensing devices, in that the amount which is dispensed is merely a multiple of the unit volume of one of the chambers in the device. These devices are more convenient in that they do not require reiterative dispensing procedures to discharge an amount of granular material which approximates the amount desired to be used.
In more specific terms, the prior art is devoid of a dispensing device for granular material which is secured to a jar or container thereof and adapted to dispense a variable amount of the granular material by rotation of a portion of the device while the container remains inverted.